Saturday, January 3, 2015

Fat

"Weird Al" Yankovic - Fat

At my last stop at the doctor's office a couple of weeks ago I weighed 265 pounds. I have gained 30 pounds in the last three years. It seems that every time my cardiologist changes my medication I gain ten pounds. If I didn't have more faith in the modern medicine I might suspect my cardiologist of trying to kill me.
I seem to be caught in a bit of vicious circle. I don't get enough exercise, which means my blood pressure goes up, so doc prescribes more medicine to lower my blood pressure, which causes water to be removed from my blood and deposited in other portions of my body. I suspect it is going into my muscles, which is why I ache all over all the time, which is why I don't get enough exercise.
That last sentence is all conjecture on my part, but it fits the known facts and we don't know any others now, do we? (Known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns, you know?)
When I was in my 20-s I weighed like 170 pounds. I attribute that to my excessively healthy lifestyle Not. More like a steady diet of cheeseburgers and beer. I didn't get married until I was 34. By that time I was approaching 200 pounds and over the next 30 years I packed on another 40 pounds.
My erratic heartbeat put me in the hospital about ten or fifteen years ago. In the week I spent there I lost ten pounds or so of water weight due to intravenous Lasix. It came back pretty quick once I got out.

I heard from an old friend of mine this week. When I first met him 30 years ago he was definitely pear-shaped. I'd estimate his weight then at 250 pounds. I weighed less than 200. At the time I thought he was excessively fat and he should do something about it, but then as now, nobody seemed to have any real answers. Now our situations are reversed. He attributes his weight loss to determination and making a combined effort with his wife.

I am just now realizing I am fat. Up till now 'I just needed to lose some weight', or 'I'm a little heavy', but I never thought of myself as fat. I mean fat people are big, dumb and slow, and I wasn't any of those, was I? Wrong again, Eisenstein.

A conversation with younger son a few weeks ago opened my eyes (funny how talking to people from another generation can give you a new perspective). My problem might be that I am not enthused about anything. I have a boat load of obligations and responsibilities. None of them are too onerous (as long as I have money in the bank), but none of them are very interesting either.
I have any number of ideas for great and wonderful inventions, but I don't seem to be able to muster the enthusiasm to follow through on any one of them. My self-driven attention span seems to last a maximum of a couple of hours, and then I need a nap. When the next day rolls around something else will pop up and grab my attention.